How to Recode Low Values (Capping) in Numeric Variables

Sometimes you may want to set low values in a Numeric variable to a certain number. This can be useful if you have a Numeric variable that has negative values, but actually shouldn't. You can recode these negative values as 0, or round up other low values based on a threshold. This article describes how to take a numeric question with low values:

Screenshot 2024-07-05 144302.png

And recode the values so that the low values are capped at a selected value:
Screenshot 2024-07-05 144408.png

Requirements

A data set containing one or more Numeric variables with low values that you want to cap.

Method

In the Data Sources pane, select the Numeric variables with low values you want to cap.
From the toolbar, click Anything > Data > Variables > Modify > Recode > Recode Low Values (Capping) in Numeric Variable(s).
Enter the value to use as the lower limit cap (I used 0 in the example above). All values lower than the value entered will be recoded to that value, and click OK.